European Union Bill

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in the debate, particularly the noble Baronesses, Lady Williams and Lady Falkner, the noble Lord, Lord Dykes, and my noble friend Lord Radice. My noble friend was quite right to point out that it would have been ideal to have a much more widely constructed objective, but I doubt that we could have got it into the Long Title, although it would have been well worth it for all the reasons that have been argued. Perhaps I may express a word of appreciation to the noble Baroness, Lady Falkner, for pointing out the phrase in the middle of the proposed new clause that was intended to broaden the scope of what is intended beyond a referendum. I had not made that point, so I greatly appreciate that it was. I am quite sure that the noble Lord, Lord Radice, did not intend last time around, as I did not this evening, to advocate some system of propaganda of a narrow and fruitless kind or publicity stunts. I can promise the noble Lord, Lord Risby, that if anyone approaches me in a white van, they will see me heading rapidly in another direction. I have no intention of engaging in a serious matter with anyone in a white van. I have nothing against white vans in general, but if there is anything emblazoned on the side that tells me that they are part of a propaganda campaign, I shall head off—on a bicycle, of course—in another direction. I accept the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton, that it is not only the media who criticise the EU, but they do play a dynamic role in these things, as they do in Germany and elsewhere. I was reflecting on the difficulty of dealing with the media. Not all that long ago, I remember reading a detailed account—albeit in relatively short paragraphs and sentences—in one of the newspapers of the European Union’s desire to insist that in future we should have only straight sausages in the United Kingdom. Such was the level of debate. I would have taken that seriously but for the fact that I turned over a couple more pages and found that it also reported that Elvis was alive and well and driving a bus in Stalybridge. My point is that you do not always get a fair crack in the media. I do not attribute all the difficulties that I have described to the media but the balance in the media has not been the balance which we have sometimes achieved in debates in your Lordships’ House. The point is to try to seek further rebalancing. The noble Lord, Lord Howell, was fair enough in mentioning one decade and pointing to the fact that we were the Government. However, he might have been a bit more generous and gone back a couple of decades to the impromptu words that the Prime Minister of the day was caught saying on television about some of his colleagues and their attitude to Europe. In the recent past, we have not had a glorious history of a balanced debate. Indeed, on occasions we have not had any debate. In seeking to withdraw the amendment, as I now do, I hope that it if has done nothing else, the initiative of the noble Lord, Lord Radice, which we followed up this evening, will make us reflect on the fact that we are unlikely, whether in the context of anything in this legislation including referenda, to have an intelligent discussion about Europe if we continue to pillory it without any serious attempt to tell the other side of the story. Amendment 31 withdrawn.